June 26, 2011 at 10:56 am
I don’t know what took me so long, but it suddenly hit me that I should download the soundtrack from The Book of Mormon in iTunes. Nothing short of seeing the show would be such an informative view on what all of the fuss is about. I have not been disappointed. For starters, the soundtrack […]
June 26, 2011 at 10:18 am
As I’m moving the chains forward on a play that involves an aspect of politics as well as home-grown attitudes,perspectives and ingrown prejudices, I am constantly wrestling with the way to summon forth what each of my characters believes, and why they believe. It’s important to build in oppositions that feel genuine, because I don’t […]
June 13, 2011 at 10:01 am
Elizabeth, thanks for opening me up to Carrie Mae Weems. What a wonderful artist, intellect and beautiful woman. I recommend you all see her website at http://carriemaeweems.net/ also check out this really terrific clip of her posing questions to Wynton Marsalis and Cornell West, two of my heroes. I love her questions and also the […]
I get the tweets from @minnesotaplays, a source I got from Ilana that I highly recommend following. There’s always something interesting coming out of there, but this one really caught my eye. It sort of seemed to fit into that category of “how to tell a playwright, you did/didn’t like her play…” And yet, quite […]
Here are two what if scenarios about theater today. The first one is about the notion that theaters and playwrights take “deep-dives” together…that the theater commit to producing a number of the PW’s plays over a season or more. The second one is a broader treatise on theater, the kind of thing that points to […]
This is a really good and fairly short interview with Tony Kushner from Time Out Online. He discusses his new work, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (or iHo), being performed at the Public/NY. Be sure to read it to the question, “How do you divide your time […]
Boston’s ArtsEmerson has announced its lineup for next season, and it looks really good. Read about it here. From John Malkovich to one of my favorite contemporary musicians, Laurie Anderson in a solo multimedia piece, AND a new play by The Civilians, this is a killer lineup of leading edge theater. Here is a link […]
Great NYT review of the nominations here. A quick read for a study break.
This article in today’s Boston Globe is particularly relevant to many of the plays we’ve been reading on race and ethnicity. The thrust of the issue – the “birther” stupidity – is one we’ve all been reading about for months in the news, and this article gives broad and historical reasons for the insidious chase […]
April 25, 2011 at 11:01 am
Please enjoy this. Wouldn’t you love to put it in a play?
April 25, 2011 at 10:45 am
OK, just ’cause it’s everyone’s favorite sport, now Law & Order will take on the Spiderman: Turn Off travesty with it’s own version of a big Broadway production gone bad.
April 18, 2011 at 6:32 am
I happened upon an article in Variety about two plays from this year’s Humana Festival that are already slated for productions around the US, and decided to do a little more digging. I had only a cursory knowledge of Humana, so I found the following articles/reviews helpful for learning more. The first article, from NPR […]
April 11, 2011 at 9:00 am
I keep thinking I’ve heard somewhere that Young Jean Lee had a new show in New York…now where did I hear that…? The Times seems to like it, and for those of you from class going down to take it in, I look forward to hearing about it. I have to say that I think […]
WETA clip on Tarell McCraney’s Marcus: The Secret of Sweet. Listen to what Trey Graham says at the end. Is it just me, or did he just . . .
April 6, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Here is a review and a wealth of information and links to leads on the world of Brother/Sister Plays from the NYT, a couple of years old. Listen to the interview excerpts with McCraney, left hand margin, about halfway down the page. What an insightful man.
The book credits “Alan Arenas” as the actor playing Oya in Steppenwolf’s Chicago production, which I thought sounded strange. It is Alana, and she’s lovely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-jq3qVplSw This link will also lead you to a wealth of other YouTube videos on the production, well worth the small investment in time. Here is Scene 1 from Red […]
March 31, 2011 at 2:09 pm
A recent production of Samuel A. Taylor’s Sabrina Fair at Ford’s Theater (Washington) cast two African American actors in the leading roles of Sabrina and her father. Audrey Hepburn played Sabrina in it’s original 1953 production, and we can presume that Taylor probably didn’t anticipate a mixed race cast in his time. The plot line […]
March 30, 2011 at 5:59 am
Yesterday morning this was a scoop, but then a letter came in the mail announcing it to the world. Walt McGough is a terrific young writer right here in Boston, hails from the mid-Atlantic, and spent time in Chicago writing and producing plays before coming to BPT for his MFA work last year. I had […]
March 28, 2011 at 12:50 pm
John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote, among other great musicals, Chicago and Caberet. They wrote the musical in which Liza Minelli made her Broadway debut (and it wasn’t Caberet…), and remained involved with her career for years. They wrote the song New York, New York, made famous by an Italian kid from Hoboken, and they […]
March 23, 2011 at 10:53 am
This very timely review of South End Rep’s current production of The Weir is helpful in establishing the world of the play.
